Worlds of Serendipity (Chapter 1)

I only edited the first half of this, so beware! It looks long, but I think it goes by fast.

If you want to be a follower of Worlds of Serendipity, join the club! I will send messages when I post a new chapter, so you'll be able to follow it easier.

Chapter 1

Two soft echoes bounced off the stone walls, exiting into the courtyard in the center of the castle. A girl, one that looked no more than seven years old, was reading a book. Meanwhile her brother, a boy who appeared to be a great deal older than her – twelve years, more or less – walked in peace in circles around the square garden.

“How are you feeling today, Zina?” asked the younger girl, her thoughts remained buried in her book.

Beneath his green robe, he played with his fingers. It took him several moments to answer. “I don’t know. I’m excited

for Cammi to return. She can usually take my mind off… things.”

The young girl looked up at her older brother. “And I can’t?”

They made eye contact, and once again Zina’s amber eyes showed fear as he looked at his sister.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked after moments of silence.

He didn’t answer, just tried to walk slower to avoid her, but she lightened her pace with him. From the third tower, the tower opposite from where they were positioned in the courtyard, came a loud shout which stirred the birds playing in the fountain at the center. Zina and his sister looked at the tower, not knowing what was going on, but expecting to know soon.

They continued walking, knowing whatever the scream was for was about would reach their ears eventually. Living on an island had its pros. Their large castle with tall, guarding stone walls protected them from the dangers that sought to kill them every day. All around them, the sky was falling into the pit of darkness that had consumed the ocean around them. They often wondered about what they could not see – had darkness taken over all of the worlds?

Just then, the siblings’ silent walk was interrupted by the running of a tall, teenage girl, a few years younger than Zina. Her black skirt was short, so she used black and white striped stockings to cover her legs. Her light brown hair was lined with flowers and vines she had crafted herself from the plants that managed to crawl over the great wall.

“Bane says he’s found her,” the girl croaked between gasps.

“Goodness Tin, where did you come from?” asked the little girl as she reached her small white hand to touch the teen’s forehead. The boy just stared with his piercing amber eyes.

“The third tower, but never mind that.” She focused her googly eyes on the boy. “They found her, Zina! They found Liza!”

The little girl, known as Kisa, shook her head. Zina’s expression remained the same as it had been when they started their walk around the courtyard.

“Bane has said he’s found her before,” said Kisa. “None of them have turned out to be her. We’ve had to murder at least three girls who looked like Liza. The truth is that she died out there in that lake. Liza is dead.”

Her words stuck in Zina’s head. She is dead.

Tin, the teen girl, looked at Zina. They all knew why he looked the way he did every day – on the verge of crying, on the verge of death.

That day at the lake, he threw her from the hole, exposing her cold body to the cold air. But it was too late. Her body stiffened, her hand in his.

“Kisa, you know what Bane says. He’s said it a million times!”

“Yeah! ‘All of your powers would have disappeared if she was dead. None of you exist if one of you doesn’t’ blah blah blah,’” she said mockingly. “Truth is: I don’t care. We’re better off without her. She corrupted my brother’s mind anyways.” She looked at Zina, whose eyes had suddenly taken great interest in the stone floor.

Tin’s eyes returned to Kisa, who had began again to read her book again. “Don’t say that Kisa. You know how much he’s lost.”

“I don’t care! How many times do I have to say it?! I hated her!” Kisa threw her book at Zina and ran towards the fountain, tears falling back as she ran.

Zina was stunned, and couldn’t recuperate from her words, so Tin rushed after her. Zina rubbed his head, memories that he had pushed from his mind fading back in. Her face, her voice, her hands; all of the things of hers that had left him mesmerized, addicted and wanting more. He fell on the wall, allowing himself to sob once more.

Her body, lying there, her black clothes soaking and sticking to her body. Her long, dark hair falling onto the ice in messy tangles. Her eyes, not even showing. His vision of her fading as he walked away, not looking back.

Suddenly, a familiar-but-not force struck his body. A warm hand wrapped around his neck, forcing his head to look at her. Her soft red lips that simply faded into her perfectly fair skin touched his cheek. Zina quickly closed his eyes to hide his tears. She didn’t notice. She didn’t care for his emotions.

“Baby, I’ve missed you,” she said, her voice deep and womanlike.

He hugged her back because she would question it if he didn’t. He stroked her blonde hair and kissed her red lips, hiding his tears. And she removed his emotions for a moment, but only for a moment, for memories of her kisses floated back, and he was lost again in what was the past.

*****

She jumped over rocks and fallen trees, trying to avoid tripping at her high speed. Following her were three others about her age. They ran deep into the forest where only few from their village had traveled.

Her breath was escaping her as she struggled to keep lead over the others, but she couldn’t stand the thought of someone else seeing it first.

She almost fell off the cliff as she reached it; the trees and bushes had hidden it from her. Stella ran into her back and screamed as they both rotated over the edge of the cliff. They would have fallen if Jack and Aaron hadn’t pulled them back onto solid ground. The girls fell on top of them, and they all giggled at the near-death experience. They hadn’t had many of those.

Stella leaned and kissed Jack’s cheek. Aaron expected the same, but Liza just stood, seriousness flooding into her. To the right of the edge of the cliff was a stairwell. Liza looked beyond the cliff, but nothing was there. No bottom to the canyon, and no place where it came back up to level ground. In front of her eyes was black, then above the blue sky. But even that faded into the darkness. Through the clouds fell black pieces of… something. Something Liza couldn’t identify.

She didn’t know where she would have fallen if the boys hadn’t saved them.

“What… what is that?” Stella asked, walking up to Liza.

“No idea.”

The boys joined them, and they all stared at the falling pieces, wishing for the knowledge to identify them. Suddenly a gust of wind attacked Liza, pushing her towards the stairs. No one else was affected by it, and because it seemed like she was just walking towards the steps, they followed without questioning.

Liza’s eyes followed the staircase. It led to about halfway down the rock, until the ground disappeared into a sea of black. She started her descent. The others followed, saying nothing.

At one point down, Stella almost fell, but regained her balance with the help of Jack. They giggled again, like a married couple, which they were on their way to being. Liza sighed. Ever since they had professed their love to each other – which Liza thought was a load of crap – their group had suffered. Aaron now expected Liza to do the same as Stella did with Jack. But it didn’t feel right to her.

Aaron quickly stepped ahead of the couple so he was now directly following Liza. He grabbed her pinky finger when it had slid past her with her walk and squeezed it. Liza turned around and looked at him. She wasn’t scared of his looks, though she was intimidated. He was someone girls like Liza never killed themselves dreaming about. He had shaggy blonde hair, and that was something rare in their village. And light brown eyes. Liza didn’t even know eyes could reach that color, but his did.

But it wasn’t those attributes which intimidated her. It was his expressions. He made the funniest faces, whenever he was happy, sad, or even frustrated. It was enough to make any girl laugh for the rest of his life. He was goofy, yet smart… and Liza just wasn’t good enough for him.

“You scared?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow, grinning with only half of his face. And there it was. Liza giggled, unable to contain her laughter at his silliness.

“Do you have a problem with keeping the conversation serious all the time?” she wondered aloud. There were just ten or fifteen steps left.

“Oh yeah. I don’t know why, but people often giggle without a joke when they speak to me. Tell me what I’m doing wrong!” he pleaded playfully.

“Oh – nothing’s wrong.” She could hear Stella and Jack giggling in the background. “You’re just hilarious.”

They reached the last step. There was little room to stand; only enough for one person, but Aaron felt as if he had to squeeze onto the floor with Liza anyways. Jack and Stella remained on the steps, holding hands.

Liza left Aaron’s side and walked towards the edge of the cliff. Carved into the side of the wall was an… an archway. But instead of there being some sort of room on the other side, there was blackness, the same that was on the bottom of the cliff. The same blackness that looked like mist that seemed to feather out of its main supplier, then fade away quickly. It looked like poison gas.

Liza stretched out her arm to touch it, but Aaron held it back against her will. She snatched it away from him. “What are you doing?”

“That – it looks dangerous. Let me go first.”

Liza reluctantly let him nudge her aside and step in front of the arch. He reached his hand out, but it didn’t go anywhere. It stayed at the beginning of the black mist, as if there was an invisible wall blocking his hand from reaching in any farther.

“It’s like ice.” Aaron stole his hand away and blew warm air on it. He then turned to them. “It feels like a wall of ice.”

“Let me try!” Stella shouted. Before she knew what was going on, Liza was pushed to the back of the line, and left standing on the stairs alone, the three teenagers cramming on the small span of ground in front of the arch. “He’s right Liza! It is like ice.”

Liza’s lip twitched as the black mist started to envelop her hand. She quickly took it away from the black before it… became her hand? Stella started to scream. She fell to her knees, almost falling off the rock. Aaron backed away as Jack comforted her. He tenderly convinced her to show us her hand, which she had hidden under her white shirt.

When she removed it, the three of them gasped at the same time, and Jack started mumbling things to her like, “It’s not that bad,” and “We’ll get this fixed up easily, hun.” Liza thought this was quite cute, before he turned to her.

“What the hell is this?” he shouted, showing her hand more clearly. Before, Liza had only caught a glimpse of its now frozen purple fingers. But now that it was closer, she could see that her fingers were swollen, and the very tips where her nails ended were had turned a devilish pink color, and she could see that they were turning to gray.

“Oh, her hand… she has frostbite,” Liza said as soothingly as she could.

“Well?” he shouted, bringing her hand even closer to her. Stella begged him to let her have it back, and to stop shouting. She was screaming from the pain, so what she said was mostly unclear. “Fix it!”

“Jack, you dumbass, there’s nothing I can do!” Liza shouted. Jack scowled. “If she doesn’t want her fingers chopped off, we need to get her up to Medic as soon as possible.”

Aaron looked between Jack and Liza, waiting to step in if either went out of line.

Jack took off his coat and started wrapping her hand in it. Liza knew it wouldn’t help. They needed warm water.

“Aaron and I will run ahead, get them to put a pot of water on a fire so it’s already toasty when she gets back. If we’re fast enough, she’ll make it.”

They all nodded. With Stella still screaming, Aaron and Liza trudged up the stairs and ran on their way back to the village.